


Visitation

by alba17



Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M, genre: angst - Freeform, genre: romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-18
Updated: 2010-04-18
Packaged: 2017-10-09 00:48:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/81213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alba17/pseuds/alba17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After COE, Jack returns to Cardiff from his travels and encounters memories of Ianto...and more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Visitation

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this [](http://community.livejournal.com/comment_fic/profile)[**comment_fic**](http://community.livejournal.com/comment_fic/) prompt: _Jack/Ianto, after his death Ianto comes back as a ghost_. This turned into sort of a post-COE companion piece to [Two Moons of Boeshane](http://alba17.livejournal.com/97710.html#cutid1).

He wasn't sure how long he'd been walking. His feet hurt and his back was sore from his heavy backpack. The road was the best place for him now, well away from everyone he cared for. That way they were safe. Everything he touched seemed destined to shrivel and die. It was only a matter of time.

He scratched his cheek, itchy with a layer of stubble. Shaving was a nicety he didn't bother with too much these days.

The streets looked familiar, but Jack had been travelling so much lately, never sticking to one place or time for very long, he'd lost track of exactly where and when he was. He rarely slept, but he welcomed the feeling of disorientation. It was better to be fuzzy on the details of life right now and exhaustion was a set of clothes that fit him perfectly at the moment.

He stopped for a coffee, ignoring the suspicious looks in the café and settling down at a table on the sidewalk, despite the chill temperatures. He preferred to feel the sharp edge of the cold rather than the comfort of warmth.

As he sipped his coffee, he noticed cars on the street, people talking on cell phones – familiar technologies from his last days at Torchwood. He heard bits and pieces of conversations as people passed, avoiding his glance and looking like they feared he would ask them for money. Maybe he should, he wasn't entirely sure he had any, or any that would be good here. They were speaking English, some with a distinctive accent that was achingly familiar. Wales. Probably Cardiff, based on the density of the buildings and people. He sighed, a surge of pain welling up in his chest.

He finished his coffee, trying to keep the memories at bay. He didn't want them. _Where was the Time Agency when you needed them?_ But he'd been running on instinct for a while now. That was the only thing he could really trust now. So maybe he was here for a reason.

He started walking again. The businesses thinned out and he was alone on the street, just an occasional car passing by. His boots clomped loudly on the cement. He found himself in front of a familiar dark green door. A small garden in the front was graced with a couple of empty flower pots, denuded stems of the summer's plants shrivelled and brown in December's chill. He stopped in the front walk, fingering the keys he'd found in his pocket. Somehow he knew they fit. He looked up at the third storey window. That was the one - it was dark in the deepening dusk.

He pressed the buzzer and waited. No one answered. He tried a few times, with no response. He looked up again at the window. The curtains looked familiar- they were blue. Maybe they were the same ones. Hoping against hope that no one was home, he put the key in the front door and pressed it to the left before turning it – you had to do that in order to open it, it was tricky that way. He gave the door an extra push with his foot in order to open it and entered the lobby. He bounded up the steps two at a time – force of habit – and stopped before the door of Ianto's flat – number 3A.

_God, what was he doing? This was crazy._ He knocked, just in case. Again, no answer. He sighed deeply and opened the door with the key.

The door creaked as it swung open. Jack hesitated before stepping into the flat. It was quiet - very quiet. He heard nothing – no sign of life. He stepped inside the door. The light was getting dim and he couldn't see very well, but it seemed the flat was empty. Nobody was living there. He wondered who had gotten rid of Ianto's stuff. Maybe Gwen.

He walked through the flat, which smelled of dust and disuse. Suddenly memories were slapping him in the face. Here was the lounge where he and Ianto had spent hours watching DVDs, him cracking wise about the implausibility of scifi movies and debating with Ianto whether Chris Pine or Zachary Quinto was hotter, sprawled on the sofa where things sometimes got hot and heavy before they could make it back to the bedroom.

He walked back towards the bedroom, past the tiny bathroom. It definitely wasn't big enough for two grown men to use at the same time, but strangely, the shower proved more than adequate for a nice blowjob. Perhaps, like the TARDIS, it was bigger on the inside. When he poked his head in, his foot caught on the same loose tile that it always did. He never understood why Mr. Maintenance Man himself never fixed it. He worried it with his foot for a moment, trying not to remember Ianto's bare feet curling into the tiles as he came down Jack's throat with a shout.

The bedroom. It looked much bigger without a bed. He remembered it as being rather cozy; he'd always wanted to spend more time here than he did. His lair at the Hub was cold, damp and decidedly inhospitable in contrast. It was nice to laze away a weekend morning in bed with Ianto, gradually getting completely buzzed on his industrial strength coffee and sugary pastries between bouts of ravenous sex. Ianto had a stuffed dog from his childhood that he kept on the bed, a whimsical touch that seemed kind of ridiculous for a grown man who was a professional alien hunter. But then, that was Ianto all over, an endless fount of contradictions.

He scuffed his boots along the floor, kicking up dust bunnies, ambling towards the windows. The blue curtains hung there, somehow overlooked by whoever had emptied out the flat. The light was just as Jack remembered it. This time of year it was cold and crisp when the moon shone through. He'd sometimes spend hours stationed at the window after Ianto fell asleep, watching the moon slowly make its way across the dark sky and thinking about the places he'd been out there. Wondering where the Doctor was and what fix he was getting himself into and out of, and who was travelling with him now. Then he'd look at Ianto, his mask of disinterest erased by sleep, his features carelessly loose and slack. He wished he had memorized every line, every imperfection, the way his hair curled over his forehead.

But he hadn't.

He'd known Ianto would be gone some day, somehow, probably sooner than later. But he hadn't been ready. He'd taken him for granted. Until the moment the 456 took him and then it was too late.

He hadn't been ready.

He heaved a heavy sigh and hoisted his backpack up on his shoulders, leaving the bedroom to take a quick look at the kitchen. It was strange to see it empty, devoid of Ianto's prized Italian espresso maker, which he'd bought a couple of months after Lisa's death. The first time Jack saw it, shiny and red on Ianto's kitchen counter, he knew Ianto had turned a corner, that he'd be okay. And he promptly demanded a hazelnut latte, stat. Ianto was happy to provide it, serving it to him with a proud flourish. And his fingers had grazed Jack's as he handed him the steaming mug, accompanied by a half-lidded look that made Jack's blood run faster. Jack had stayed at Ianto's rather longer than he anticipated that time.

But now the kitchen was quiet and empty and it looked too clean. The cabinets appeared dingy with no possessions to distract from their battered appearance. Jack noticed something in the sink - a mug, white with purple lettering. With a sharp intake of breath, he picked it up. "Happiness Is...A Welsh Boyfriend," it read. Ianto had given it to him last year as a joke, and it had somehow never made it back to the Hub. Ianto was constantly ribbing him about it – 'when was he going to take it to the Hub? Did he have something against the Welsh? He better be careful or he'd sic Gwen on him.' He chuckled, then looked around the room, wary. The mug was conspicuously the only personal possession other than the curtains, which were hardly personal.

He took off his backpack and leaned against the counter, lost in thought, staring at the mug. He noticed a hairline crack running straight through the words, right between the H and the A in Happiness. _Not too subtle, universe_, he thought. He hadn't taken it to the Hub because, well...maybe it symbolized something he wanted to keep separate from Torchwood, something fragile and in need of protection, something he wished he could safeguard.

He'd failed miserably at that, hadn't he?

He thought a moment about taking the mug with him, but...no, he really couldn't bear the idea. As he put it back in the sink, he felt the barest whisper of a sigh against the back of his neck, and his skin prickled with goosebumps. Then there was a faint touch, delicate as a feather, up and down his back and a warm pressure against his rear end.

Jack wondered if his exhaustion was making him hallucinate.

The air in the room vibrated and pulsed, as if the boundaries of time and space weren't quite fixed. Then something surrounded him, like wings wrapping around his torso, enveloping him in comforting warmth. He should have been alarmed, alert to possible danger, but instead he sighed and leaned back into the odd embrace. It was like nothing he'd ever experienced before, and yet it was like coming home.

Despite its strangeness, Jack relaxed into the embrace and let go a small sob. He knew, with every fibre of his being, that it was Ianto. The touch, insubstantial as a cloud, yet somehow sentient and purposeful, turned him around and completely surrounded him, supporting his weight. It was like floating on a pillow of gauze. He closed his eyes and felt every stress and strain melt out of him, as if this being, this spirit, was soaking it all up. If he had had any tears left, he would have cried.

He felt something ruffling through his hair, and the lightest of all possible touches on his neck, his face, fluttering over his chest. His breath caught as his lips were pressed in a ghostly kiss that made him want to weep with regret and frustration. There were no lips, no moist tongue to drive him wild, but the very essence of Ianto flowed into him through that kiss. It held everything that Ianto had been and might have become, and Jack could almost see him shimmering into life before him as he felt his own invincible life force surging forth.

The kiss probably only lasted for seconds, but it felt like he was melded with Ianto's spirit for hours. When it was over, Jack knew that Ianto forgave him. Forgave him for any mistakes he'd made, forgave him for Stephan and the 456, for giving up on the mission of Torchwood and turning his back on the Earth. This was the moment he'd been waiting for all these months of restless roaming, without even knowing it. He felt the presence gradually fade, until all that was left was a whisper-light brush of air against his lips and an incandescent swirl through the suddenly cold air in the room.

He stood there for several moments, feeling at peace for the first time in a very long while. It was all going to be okay. He hefted his backpack and put the keys on the counter. He wouldn't need them any more. He took one last look at the mug in the sink before heading for the door.

As he left the flat, he gave a salute to Ianto, his fallen soldier. Now he was ready to do battle for Earth once again.

 

 

NOTE: Mugs that say "Happiness is...a Welsh girlfriend" are available online at www.mug-shop.co.uk  for £6.95. No boyfriend mug, for some reason.


End file.
